Chinese-English dual language bilingual education in the United States
美国中英双语沉浸式教学

ABSTRACT

This special issue examines dual-language bilingual education (DLBE) programmes in North America that provide emergent bilinguals with instruction in two-way and one-way bilingual programmes. We use the term Dual-Language Bilingual Education to emphasise the end-goal of bilingualism and reclaim the critical and social justice orientation of bilingual education. Currently, scholarship surrounding DLBE programmes in North America focus primarily on Spanish-English and French-English language combinations, and lack in Chinese-English DLBE programmes. Still, research in this language area is garnering more attention, yielding findings that are both unique to the Chinese partner language and generalisable to other la-nguage combinations. To frame this special issue, we provide a systematic review of Chinese-English DLBE research from peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2021. Twenty-eight articles were analyzed for trends and themes. Together with the six studies in this special issue, these articles discuss various issues in Chinese-English DLBE research including (but not limited to) learning outcomes, stakeholder perspectives, language development, and pedagogical supports, while adopting different research designs. We envision this special issue will diversify the language area in current bilingual education research and critically engage with interdisciplinary research narratives to examine opportunities and challenges in Chinese-English DLBE research.

摘要

这期特刊主要探讨了北美双语沉浸式项目(包含单向和双向两种)。我们使用“Dual-Language Bilingual Education” 这个术语是为了强调双语发展应为最终目的, 并且恢复双语教育的批判性内核, 其原本主旨在于促进社会正义。目前, 北美双语沉浸式项目的研究主要集中在西班牙语和法语, 在中文方面仍非常匮乏。值得庆幸的是, 中文研究的关注度在日益提高, 并且由此得出了既特别针对中文, 又可以推广到其他目标语言的研究成果。为了构架这期特刊, 我们对中英双语沉浸式研究方面的同行评审期刊文章(2000年到2021年)进行了系统的文献回顾, 并且主要分析了28篇文章的主题和趋势。这些文章和这期特刊内的六篇文章, 分别采用了不同的研究方法对以下问题进行了剖析, 包括但并不局限于: 学习成果、多方视角、语言发展和教学支持。我们希望这期特刊会使目前的双语研究更加语言多样化, 并且促进跨学科间的批判性交流, 共同挖掘在中英双语沉浸式项目中的机遇与挑战。

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingual education
• Chinese-English dual language bilingual education
• United States
• systematic review

关键词:

• 双语教育
• 中英双语沉浸式教学
• 美国
• 系统性回顾

Introduction

For centuries, the United States has experimented with different education models to serve its growing immigrant student populations (Brisk 2006; García 2009). Paradoxically, with cultural and linguistic diversity as a reality in U.S. schools, language-in-education policies have historically reflected an ambivalent relationship with languages other than English (Palmer, Zuñiga, and Henderson 2015). ‘Bilingual education’ in the U.S. has shifted between tolerance and oppression in different times and places throughout history depending on politics (a wide range of legislation, litigation, and state and federal initiatives), the economy, and the size of the immigrant population (see a full review in Gándara and Escamilla 2017 and Baker and Wright 2021a). Unfortunately, the prevailing monolingual ideologies and discourses continue to dominate language in education policies, which privilege English-only mandates and regard bilingual education only as a transitional path toward teaching English without actually educating a student in two languages (Gándara and Contreras 2009). Fortunately, bilingual researchers and educators along with grassroot organisations from minoritized communities have routinely advocated for the language rights of immigrant students and called for developing new forms of quality and equitable bilingual education to truly maintain, sustain, and expand students’ bi/multilingual competence. Within the continuous struggle against English monolingualism, dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programmes with the purposes of developing high levels of bilingualism and biliteracy, academic achievement, and cross-cultural competence (Christian 2016) emerged in the mid twentieth century. Coral Way Elementary School, developed by a local U.S. Cuban community in Miami, Florida, in 1963, has been identified as the first such programme that embraced both Spanish- and English-speaking students (Coady 2019; de Jong 2016; García and Otheguy 1988). It approached bilingualism from an additive perspective and viewed learning and maintaining Spanish as a resource rather than a deficit to be overcome (Ruíz 1984).

With a substantial number of research studies demonstrating the benefits of bilingualism and the effectiveness of DLBE programmes for both language-minoritized and language-majoritized students (e.g. Collier and Thomas 2004; Howard, Sugarman, and Christian 2003; Lindholm-Leary and Genesee 2014; Tedick and Wesely 2015; Thomas and Collier 2002, 2003), the rapid economic globalisation at the turn of the twenty-first century, and more state policies that reward bilingualism (such as the Seal of Biliteracy), proficiency in languages other than English has become an important goal for all (mainstream English-dominant families also developed interest in language immersion education, Dorner 2011) and thereby DLBE programmes are growing in popularity across the U.S. Various forms of DLBE programmes are implemented to suit the needs of local communities during the widespread expansion process. Generally speaking, based on the student population served, DLBE programmes can be broadly categorised as either one-way immersion, which serve one specific target population, be it language-majoritized speakers or language-minoritized speakers, or two-way immersion, which include students who are native monolingual English speakers as well as students for whom English is an additional language (Howard et al. 2018). Typically, DLBE offers the teaching of core subject matter in two languages with strict separation of language use (by certain content area, teacher, time, and/or place) and a minimum of 50% of instruction in the Language Other Than English (LOTE) (Soltero 2016).

In the U.S., the vast majority of DLBE programmes are offered at the elementary school level and are Spanish-English programmes (Baker and Wright 2021b); however, there are small but growing numbers of programmes in middle and high schools (i.e. secondary schools) and programmes that involve languages other than Spanish (Center for Applied Linguistics 2014). Among them, Chinese has become one of the most popular foreign languages studied among K-12 school children due to the rising economic and political power of China and the desired benefits of being a Chinese-English bilingual in society (Fortune 2012). Mandarin (rather than Cantonese) is offered in the majority of the Chinese-English DLBE programmes in the U.S. There were 317 Mandarin-English DLBE programmes across the states in 2021, a dramatic increase from only 61 programmes in 2011 (Lee and Wang 2021). California is home to the largest cluster of Mandarin-English DLBE programmes with 79 programmes (24.9%) followed by Utah with 66 programmes (20.8%) (Lee and Wang 2021). In recent years, Mandarin-English DLBE programmes have become gentrified toward white, native English speakers with a relatively small enrolment of Chinese-speaking or -heritage students (Li and Wen 2015; Valdez, Freire, and Delavan 2016). According to Lü (2020), one-way Chinese immersion programmes that mainly serve English-speaking children increased five-fold since 2018 compared to two-way immersion programmes. In addition, Mandarin-English DLBE programmes have steadily expanded to secondary level education while most programmes presently focus on the elementary level (Lee and Wang 2021).

Trends in Chinese-English dual language bilingual education

This special issue examines DLBE programmes in the U.S. that provide emergent bilinguals with instruction in two-way and one-way bilingual programmes (Lindholm-Leary and Genesee 2014). We use the term Dual Language Bilingual Education (instead of Dual Language Education) to emphasise the end-goal of bilingualism and reclaim the critical and social justice orientation of bilingual education (Sánchez, García, and Solorza 2018). Currently, scholarship surrounding DLBE programmes in the U.S. focus primarily on Spanish-English language combination. While this body of research has made important contributions to the field, there is a lack of literature on Chinese-English programmes that provide emergent bilinguals with supportive learning environments that build on their linguistic and cultural resources. Still, research in this language area is garnering more attention, yielding findings that are both unique to the Chinese partner language and generalisable to other language combinations in DLBE programmes.

To understand the landscape of research of Chinese-English DLBE programmes in North America, we conducted a systematic review of empirical research published between 2000 and 2021. We searched for peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters using Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC) and Google Scholar databases as they are freely available, accessible in multiple languages, and more comprehensive than Web of Science and Scopus (Harzing and Alakangas 2016; Martín-Martín et al. 2018). Inclusion criteria were determined using the following Boolean search terminology: ‘Chinese-English bilingual program’ OR ‘Mandarin-English bilingual program’ OR ‘Cantonese–English bilingual program’ OR ‘C/E dual language program’ OR ‘Chinese immersion program’ OR ‘Dual language learner’ AND ‘K-12 context’ AND ‘North America’. This inclusion criteria yielded a total of 616 studies. After removing duplicates, 89 studies remained in the sample.

Next, exclusion criteria were applied to the 89 studies. Articles and book chapters were excluded from the sample if they were not based in North America, were outside of the K-12 context, or focused on heritage language development rather than Chinese-English bilingual development from DLBE programmes. Studies were also excluded if they were conceptual articles, articles related to online learning, or strictly on bilingual language development. After applying exclusion criteria, a total of 28 articles remained in the sample. These articles included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research studies. Articles were transferred to an Excel database and systematically examined for themes, generating codes and high-level codes independently before discussing and refining until consensus was reached (Saldaña 2021). The following section provides general trends from the systematic review of Chinese-English DLBE research in North America, followed by specific trends, which incorporate articles featured in this special issue.

General trends

From the 28 articles in the sample, there was a noticeable increase in Chinese-English DLBE research beginning in 2015. From 2010 to 2014, one to two articles were published per year. In 2015, nine articles were published, after which at least four articles were published in the ensuing years. Interestingly, just over half of the studies (53.6%) were quantitative studies, while 35.7% were qualitative (N = 10) and three adopted mixed methods approaches (10.7%). In terms of the scope and context of research, 20 studies (71.4%) were conducted in the United States of America while eight studies (28.6%) occurred in Canada. Consistent with Spanish-English DLBE research, a large portion of studies examined Chinese-English DLBE in the younger years, with 17 studies (41.5%) in the Kindergarten to Grade 2 (or Primary 2), 15 studies (36.6%) in Grades 3–5, and only nine studies (32.1%) in Grades 6–12. A majority of the studies were conducted in Mandarin-speaking learning contexts (82.1%) with only three studies (10.7%) examining Cantonese contexts. Two studies did not specify a language and used ‘Chinese’ throughout the study.

Focus on learning outcomes 注重学习成果

One clear theme from the reviewed studies was a focus on learning outcomes in these bilingual school contexts. Specifically, studies used quantitative measures to capture outcomes in language and literacy proficiency in two or more languages as well as academic achievement to measure the effectiveness of Chinese-English DLBE programmes (e.g. Padilla et al. 2013; Xu, Padilla, and Silva 2015). Encouraging results from these studies indicate that all children from a range of linguistic, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds are capable of achieving high levels of functional proficiency in Chinese when enrolled in Chinese-English DLBE programmes (Lindholm-Leary 2011; Padilla et al. 2013). Taking a different approach to understanding success and outcome data for children in bilingual programmes, Torres-Guzmán et al. (2002) drew from collective case studies to highlight the importance of collecting and compiling evidence from a variety of sources. The qualitative study used interviews with different stakeholders, class observations, field visits, field notes, and reports from the website to define and document success for bilingual learners in bilingual programmes. The authors also noted a significant challenge in using assessment data at the administration level to inform teaching and learning at the classroom level.

While quantitative and qualitative approaches to Chinese-English DLBE outcomes are also represented in this special issue, two articles, in particular, investigate outcomes that represent nuanced measures beyond language proficiency and academic achievement. In the article, ‘Young readers in a Mandarin Chinese dual-language bilingual education programme’, Sung conducted a mixed methods study to understand reading strategies employed by Chinese language learners in a one-way, world language bilingual education context in Utah. Reading two different books, videotaping, transcribing, and quantifying reading strategies, Sung found that text editing, asking for help, and pointing were the most represented strategies used when children encountered challenges in Chinese reading. Importantly, she also noted key differences in strategy use by children with high, average, and low Chinese proficiency.

Another article in this special issue, ‘Language proficiency and competence: Upper elementary students in a Dual-Language Bilingual Education program’ by He, Yang, Leung, Zhou, Tong and Uchikoshi, adopts a quantitative approach to understand the relationship between language proficiency and competence in elementary school students enrolled in a Cantonese–English DLBE programme in the United States. Findings demonstrated important associations between Cantonese speaking and writing proficiency with classroom competence, academic competence, and peer competence. Aligned with research from the systematic review, students in Chinese-English DLBE programmes were able to achieve academically at or above their non bilingual peers and did not demonstrate delay in the development of early English language and literacy skills (Hipfner-Boucher, Lam, and Chen 2014; Lam, Chen, and Cummins 2015; Lü 2017).

Stakeholder perspectives 多方视角

The extant literature on Chinese-English DLBE programmes in the North American context covered a range of different stakeholder perspectives. Specifically, studies considered issues related to teachers, students, and parents in these dual-language contexts (Kong 2015; Leung and Uchikoshi 2012; Lindholm-Leary 2016; Yang et al. 2018). A number of studies examined teaching practice and teacher identity in Chinese-English DLBE contexts. For example, Kong (2015) examined how two Chinese immersion kindergarten teachers viewed their roles as both content and language teachers, and explored how their instruction was informed by their identities. The two teachers considered themselves both content and language teachers, and this dual identity inspired them to creatively engage learners in class activities that simultaneously scaffolded both objectives. Taking the Chinese language into thoughtful consideration, the teachers nurtured the multi-dimensional understanding of concepts while also paying close attention to assessing students’ linguistic development.

Focusing on students, a large proportion of studies in the systematic review examined student academic performance (N = 18) and learning experiences (N = 5). Student performance included a range of indicators, such as bilingual and biliteracy development (Lam, Chen, and Cummins 2015), playful use of language (Zhang and Guo 2015), peer collaboration (Sun 2016), and narrative skills on reading comprehension (Uchikoshi, Yang, and Liu 2018). In a study that focused on both academic performance and student learning experiences, Zhang and Guo (2015) considered how multilingual children navigated different languages in their literacy practices, and sought to understand the pedagogical and policy implications of such language and literacy practices. Drawing from Multiple Literacies Theory (Masny 2010) and Translanguaging Theory (García and Li 2014); Zhang and Guo (2015) found that students demonstrated creative uses of languages (e.g. inventing poems, creating nicknames, using homonyms) and that the boundaries surrounding languages should be broken down to welcome more creativity and linguistic flexibility.

Very few studies investigated the perspectives of parents as key stakeholders in children’s bilingual education. This is an important perspective considering two general purposes for Chinese-English DLBE education: first for Chinese-speaking immigrant families to support heritage language maintenance, and second for non-Chinese-speaking families who want their children to acquire Mandarin Chinese as an additional world language (i.e. a world language classroom). Interviewing 21 parents in the MidAtlantic from largely non-Chinese ethnic backgrounds, Chung (2020) found that parents made associations between learning Mandarin with economic, political, sociolinguistic, and sociocultural capital. Interestingly, parents accepted and rejected aspects of Chinese culture and language and often conflated Chinese language with culture and nationality. Extending this work in the current special issue, Leung, Calcagno, Tong and Uchikoshi examined how parental multilingual ideologies mediated Cantonese–English elementary students’ own understandings of multilingualism. In this study, Leung and colleagues specifically investigated how children talked about language and identity, informed by their parents, and uncovered how they are often shaped by utilitarian, neoliberal, and classed ideas about linguistic knowledge and competitiveness.

Language development 语言发展

Aligned with the greater field of bilingual education research, a number of studies in Chinese-English DLBE contexts focused on assessing language development in the two languages. Some scholars have closely examined the cross-linguistic relationship between English and Mandarin in the classroom. For example, this could include cross-linguistic relationships relative to phonological awareness, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension (Hipfner-Boucher, Lam, and Chen 2014; Koh et al. 2017). Hipfner-Boucher, Lam, and Chen (2014) found that Chinese phonological awareness was significantly related to English word reading among Grade 1 Chinese-speaking Canadian children. Koh et al. (2017) likewise found that Mandarin-speaking students in a Kindergarten to Grade 4 bilingual programme performed better in Chinese character recognition, as well as above grade norms on standardised measures of English literacy skills. Moreover, there were significant correlations between English phonological awareness and Chinese word reading and reading comprehension. Similarly, Lam, Chen, and Cummins (2015) found positive correlations between Chinese and English measures of phonological awareness, syntactic awareness, receptive vocabulary, and word reading within and across languages, suggesting cross-linguistic transfer. Together, findings indicated that instruction in Chinese did not delay the development of early English language and literacy skills for children enrolled in these programmes.

Adding to the research base, some studies have explored comparisons between children enrolled in English/Spanish DLBE and English/Chinese DLBE programmes in the United States context (Lindholm-Leary 2016; Uchikoshi and Maniates 2010; Uchikoshi, Yang, and Liu 2018). In most cases, students from the English/Chinese programmes demonstrated similar benefits as those in English/Spanish programmes, according to both linguistic and cognitive measures. In the current issue, we see studies that also explore linguistic and cognitive benefits of Chinese-English DLBE programmes. He, Yang, Leung, Zhou, Tong and Uchikoshi examined associations between language proficiency and competency. Specifically, researchers investigated children’s bilingual (English and Cantonese) language proficiency in the four domains of reading, writing, speaking, and listening, as it related to children’s competency in academic, peer relationships, activities involvement, and classroom behaviour. Findings demonstrated the important, positive influence of Cantonese and English writing proficiency on students’ classroom competence, as well as English reading proficiency on peer competence. As a whole, this study opens the door for more research on the interconnections between language development and affective, cognitive, and social development.

Pedagogical supports in DLBE 教学支持

A final trend that emerged from the systematic review of Chinese-English DLBE programmes in North America was a focus on specific pedagogical approaches and supports used in the bilingual classroom (Eubanks, Yeh, and Tseng 2018; Jiang, García, and Willis 2014; Zhou and Li 2017). In the research, scholars have examined how considering a learner’s bilingual identity (Leung, Uchikoshi, and Tong 2018; Lo-Philip and Park 2015) and teachers’ identities (Kong 2015) in classrooms can support bilingual teaching and learning. Lo-Philip and colleagues, for example, examined three students’ educational experiences in Grades 7–8 as it relates to their bilingual self, language, culture, and race. The authors argued that both the first (L1) and second (L2) languages could be productively used in the classroom context to critically reflect upon their perspective and experiences with language, culture, and identity.

Developing meta-linguistic awareness between Chinese and English was also an important pedagogical practice in bilingual classrooms. Kuo et al. (2020) examined the relationship between input and literacy/metalinguistic development in bilingual children from both Taiwan and the United States. Consistent with language development research, findings from the study indicated that more consistent exposure and input in the language led to higher levels of biliteracy and metalinguistic development, which has implications for bilingual classroom instruction. Aligned with research on bilingual instructional spaces, translanguaging pedagogy argues for learning environments where children’s full linguistic repertoire are represented, so that students can draw from one dynamic system to make meaning of new content (García and Li 2014; Zheng 2021). The current special issue contributes to this growing body of translanguaging pedagogy research in Chinese-English DLBE contexts.

Tian examined how to implement translanguaging allocation policy (Sánchez, García, and Solorza 2018) in a Grade 3 Mandarin classroom with English-dominant speakers. Co-designing translanguaging spaces with the Mandarin teacher, Tian noted the challenge of balancing language-minoritized spaces while privileging students’ use of Mandarin – an important pedagogical critique regarding the ‘dual’ in Chinese-English dual language bilingual education classrooms. Also looking beyond the ‘two’ in dual language education, Zheng investigated how students from diverse backgrounds perceived and enacted their multilingualism in dual Chinese-English DLBE classrooms. In the context of teaching and learning, Zheng finds that bilingualism is perceived by students as resourceful, gaining legitimacy in an English-dominant U.S. society. Still, there were important variations and nuances by children from different social and linguistic backgrounds, pointing to a need for responsive dual language policies and pedagogies to enhance Chinese-English bilingual education.

Finally, Zhou and Li conducted a discourse analysis on Mandarin-English DLBE classrooms in order to understand the patterns of Chinese immersion teachers’ language use and the associated pedagogical functions. Among many interesting findings, Zhou and Li discovered that translanguaging practices were most frequently used in instruction for pedagogical activities related to curriculum. In some instances, translanguaging was used for regulatory pedagogical functions (e.g. asking students not to speak over one another), with fewer instances of organisational purposes (e.g. having students move from one table to another).

Future directions

The six articles in this special issue make important contributions to the literature on Chinese-English DLBE programmes that build on the linguistic and cultural resources of emergent bilinguals. They also provide important directions for future research. Below we list a few (not an exhaustive list) based on the four themes we identified above.

First, in addition to the extant learning outcome-oriented studies, we welcome more qualitative studies exploring bilingual students’ learning processes or unpacking the development process of their bi/multilingualism and bi/multi-literacy skills, in relation to learners’ cultural, linguistic, racial, socioeconomic backgrounds, identity formation, and socio-emotional aspects. This will provide us with nuanced insights into factors that may impact learning outcomes, and with a holistic understanding of the trajectory of learner growth in Chinese-English DLBE programmes.

Secondly, we hope to see more studies adopting a variety of methodologies (such as ethnography, case study, and survey) to investigate different stakeholders’ perspectives for triangulation and comparative analysis. Parents and administrators’ voices should be further amplified (in addition to teachers’ and students’) to identify opportunities and challenges of Chinese-English DLBE programmes in the United States and in international contexts. This will not only contribute to improving the effectiveness of programme implementation, but also generate ideas to further strengthen home-school connections.

Thirdly, while there is a growing number of studies examining the language development of bilingual learners in Chinese-English DLBE programmes, more attention needs to be given to under-represented learner groups: for example, students with special needs or learning difficulties, and language-minoritized students whose home language background is different from the partner language (e.g. an initially Spanish-dominant student who is learning Chinese as an additional language; or a student from a Fujianese-speaking community learning Mandarin as an additional language). Research in this area will help us understand how to better address these students’ unique needs to facilitate their language and literacy development, and shed light on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in Chinese-English DLBE settings.

Lastly, we urge future researchers to adopt a critical lens or theoretical framework to examine broader issues like hegemonic discourses, gentrification, and raciolinguistic ideologies in Chinese-English DLBE programmes. Accordingly, we hope to see more studies adopting (participatory or collaborative) design-based or action research to discern strategic and purposeful ways of implementing culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies, such as critical pedagogies, translanguaging, and multiliteracies. These pedagogies may be manifested in curriculum and instruction to cultivate critical consciousness, challenge oppressive power structures, and promote social justice.

To summarise, this special issue has brought together scholars to examine the growing body of research in Chinese-English DLBE programmes with empirical articles that highlight both Mandarin and Cantonese programmes in the United States that discuss various issues including (but not limited) to biliteracy development, parental perspectives, and teaching and learning, while adopting different research designs and methods like conversational analysis, multiple regression, focus group discussions, and scalar analysis. We envision this special issue will diversify the language area in current bilingual education research and critically engage with interdisciplinary research narratives to examine opportunities and challenges in Chinese-English DLBE programmes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).